1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a cooking apparatus, and more particularly, to a cooking apparatus that is capable of effectively transferring heat to food to be cooked, thereby improving an energy efficiency of the cooking apparatus and reducing cooking time.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, meat, such as beef and pork, and processed meat, such as sausage and ham, are most delicious when grilled, in which food is cooked by directly applying heat to the food while putting the food on a grill. Accordingly, people are fond of having meat and processed meat grilled.
In general, a cooking apparatus that grills food includes a heating unit that applies heat to food, and a grill unit on which the food is put to be partially exposed to the heating unit. The cooking apparatus functions to cook the food by transferring heat generated by the heating unit to food put on the grill unit.
To grill meat such as beef, pork, and mutton, the meat is cut into slices having an appropriate size, and is put on the grill unit, and sauce made of various condiments is applied thereto. When slices of meat mixed with sauce are heated by heat transferred from the heating unit, oil contained in the slices of meat and sauce applied to the meat drop downward.
Consequently, an oil collecting unit is provided in a body of the cooking apparatus to collect heated oil and sauce that drop downward from the slices of meat. The oil collecting unit is disposed under the grill unit, and the heating unit is disposed between the grill unit and the oil collecting unit.
But the conventional cooking apparatus constructed as described above cooks food using only heat transferred upward from the heating unit, because the heating unit is disposed just under the grill unit. Accordingly, the conventional cooking apparatus cannot effectively transfer heat to the food, so the conventional cooking apparatus has a low energy efficiency, and requires a lengthy cooking time.
Additionally, the conventional cooking apparatus is disadvantageous in that the grill unit is maintained at high temperature by the heat received from the heating unit, so portions of food in contact with the heated grill unit burn, thus deteriorating the taste of the food and potentially doing harm to users' health.